Recorded Sunday, February 18, 2018

This week we celebrate Kerry’s birthday by discussing Spectre and Meltdown, the Chrome ad blocker, the possible future of cryptomining, and the GPU shortage. And we wonder who’s watching us in California…

Women of NASA Lego Set

Picture of Margaret Hamilton on which the Lego minifigure is based

Story 1: Another Day, Another Spectre/Meltdown Exploit

New Security Exploit Found for Meltdown and Spectre Vulnerability (ITPro Today)

Meltdown-Spectre: Now the class action suits against Intel are starting to mount up (ZDNet)

Story 2: Chrome Says Goodbye to Annoying Ads

Good news: Chrome debuts automatic blocking of annoying ads (Ars Technica)

Story 3: Now That You’re Blocking Ads, Sites Want to Borrow Your CPU Cycles

Salon website asks readers to mine cryptocurrency (The Telegraph)

Story 4: Are Cryptominers Ruining Computing for Everyone?

How cryptocurrency mining is hurting astronomers (The Verge)

Cryptocurrency boom, a problem for gamers, is a bonanza for GPU makers (Ars Technica)

Inside the Chinese Bitcoin Mine That’s Grossing $1.5M a Month (Motherboard)

Etc.

Drop us a line and tell us about yourself and what you’d like to know more about. Please don’t say cryptocurrency or Spectre/Meltdown

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